


I Just Want Revenge (And A Little Bit More)

by AvoidingAverage



Series: Stucky AUs [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Banter, Based on a Tumblr Post, Everyone is a superhero, First Kiss, Fluff, Humor, Hydra is still the worst, Identity Porn, Identity Reveal, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mistaken Identity, Mutual Pining, NO CAPES, OTP Feels, Oblivious Steve Rogers, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Sam Wilson, Sam Wilson is So Done, Secret Identity, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson Friendship, Stucky - Freeform, Superheroes, Tony Stark Is a Good Bro, Tony is Edna Mole, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, shrunkyclunk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-25 01:14:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22007545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvoidingAverage/pseuds/AvoidingAverage
Summary: Welcome to New York city--a city filled to the brim with a strange collection of superheroes and supervillains.At the heart of this rivalry stands the supervillain Winter Soldier and the heroic Falcon. And Steve Rogers.  Because what good is a nemesis if there isn't a heart on the line?Or, the alternate universe where everyone is a superhero or a villain.  Bucky is the Winter Soldier and is willing to do whatever it takes to bring Hydra down and the Falcon is the only thing standing in his way.  Featuring an oblivious Steve, an overprotective Sam and Bucky, and a whole lot of secret identities.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Natasha Romanov, James "Bucky" Barnes & Tony Stark, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov/Sam Wilson
Series: Stucky AUs [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1526978
Comments: 9
Kudos: 52





	I Just Want Revenge (And A Little Bit More)

**Author's Note:**

> This started based on a tumblr prompt about a superhero and supervillain forced to get along because of a mutual friend and quickly spiraled into madness. The narration is based on the format for Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse (because I love it) and it's meant to be pretty light hearted. 
> 
> Don't worry--there will be lots more Stucky in the upcoming chapters.

It was surprisingly easy to murder someone in New York City.

Too many people believed that the crowds that never seem to go away and the glow of the streetlights would keep them safe from the shadows lurking at the edges. The average citizen knew to stay close to those beacons of safety and avoided the areas where the music fades and the rapid beat of their heart becomes their only companion. There was where the truth of their mortality became obvious.

Tonight he would not bother with the weak and the drunken stragglers left behind by their friends. He had far more interesting prey to consider.

The few people wary enough to notice the masked stranger in their midst were careful to give him a wide berth. His features were safely hidden beneath the heavy hood he wore with his leather jacket and the domino mask covering the upper portion of his face. He’d chosen his clothing and the time he would appear in public carefully, ensuring that he would appear like any other drunk wandering home after a long night. The gun tucked into his waistband and the knives locked into their hidden sheathes around his body were carefully hidden beneath folds of fabric.

Glancing up at the street signs in the gloom, he turned down a side street and stepped up to the third door on the right. He waited until a noisy group of college students passed before reaching for the handle with his left hand. The sound of the lock snapping was barely noticeable against the noise of a siren just a few blocks over. He stepped inside.

The interior of the building was nearly as dark as its exterior, but it didn’t bother him as he moved down the side hallway towards the main corridor. He could hear the sounds of the night guards chattering amongst themselves just a few yards away. Mentally, he counted the voices and compared it to the information he’d bought off a nosy neighbor.

Five guards. Each of them confident in their ability to keep watch over a unremarkable building in an unremarkable neighborhood in the center of Brooklyn. Anyone who knew its real purpose here would never risk bringing down the wrath of the rest of their organization. 

It made it almost too easy to catch them unawares.

The first guard’s scream cut off with a gurgle thanks to the new hole in his neck courtesy of the knife that had been hidden in his boot. The rest of the men leapt to their feet with enough panic that made him feel a surge of vicious delight. 

He pulled out a second knife, ignoring his gun in favor of something quieter. “Not so tough when your victims fight back, are you?” he asked in a conversational tone.

One of the men clenched his jaw and stepped forward with a snarl. “You don’t know who you’re messing with.”

“Hydra, right?” he replied easily, enjoying the way the men began to shift nervously. “Oh, I know  _ exactly _ who you are.”

“Then you know you’re already as good as dead for stepping foot in here.”

He shrugged out of his heavy leather jacket, watching the way their eyes dropped to the gleaming metal of his arm. One of the guards muttered a quiet curse. He just smiled and let the metal plates recalibrate in near-silent menace. “Looks like you know who I am too.”

The man at the back of the group gulped and breathed, “The Winter Soldier.”

Spreading his arms in a mockery of a welcoming gesture, Bucky’s expression turned feral.

“Let’s begin.”

* * *

Let’s do this.

It goes like this:

For the past two years, Bucky Barnes has been a supervillain. 

An anti-hero, really, if you wanted to argue semantics.

It didn’t start out that way, of course. No one looks in the mirror one day and thinks to themselves, “Yeah, I want to be the reason some kid is crying.” Nope, he grew up hoping to be a halfway decent person, have a job he liked, maybe fall in love, and leave a few people who might miss him when he died.

Fate had other plans for him.

Back in the day, Bucky Barnes was your average kid. Good looking enough to attract a few stares and charming enough to make the stares stick. He had everything going for him. Until the day he met his version of a radioactive spider or fate or whatever variation of the same old story you preferred.

You see, that was the day Bucky Barnes met his kryptonite in the form of one Steven Grant Rogers.

For every bit of charm and easy going humor Bucky possessed, Steve contained triple the barely controlled fury and outrage against the injustices of the world. Maybe that was why fate decided to keep him contained in such a tiny, sickly body--anything larger would either bring about the destruction of all human life or just the devastation of anyone stupid enough to stand against him. It made it impossible for Steve to walk past anyone dumb enough to catcall or bully or act just plain mean to anyone in his vicinity. All it took was a few harsh words and even the biggest bully in Brooklyn was liable to have all ninety pounds of furious asthmatic on their ass.

Which was how Bucky got his start in the whole anti-hero gig.

Where Steve was all goodness and light, Bucky was more than willing to accept a few black marks on his soul if it meant keeping his best friend safe from the worst kinds of evil the world could create. He was willing to wait until Steve was out of sight to bloody his knuckles on the jaws of every bully who ever thought they could break Steve Rogers. And he probably would have kept following like a shadow in Steve’s wake, crushing anyone who dared to hurt him for the rest of his life if he could.

But then his mom and dad died.

Suddenly the money set aside for his college was drained away in funeral costs and the price of finding a place for Becca to stay until she graduated high school. He couldn’t afford to worry about his own future when he had hers to secure. So he put away the brochures from NYU and the framed photo from when he and Steve toured the campus in middle school and walked to the nearest recruiter’s office. He even managed to tell Steve goodbye without breaking down in front of him.

Six years. Four close calls that he pretended didn’t terrify him. 2, 394 letters between two friends separated by an ocean and the reality that Bucky had gone somewhere Steve would never be allowed to follow, not with his body. Too many nights spent clutching at the t shirt that had long since stopped smelling like sunshine and righteous fury. Too many lifeless eyes following each step he took away from the boy he’d been towards the monster he was becoming.

The explosion that took his arm was almost a relief.

The six months as a prisoner of war...not so much.

The only good thing Hydra managed to do for him was ensure that when the good ol’ U.S. of A. finally found him, they decided it was too much of a risk to keep him on the active duty roster. His newfound strength and strangely heightened senses were carefully hidden along with the night terrors and panic attacks that went nicely with his new ability to avoid sleep. Bucky might have become a killer, but he wasn’t stupid enough to risk his newfound freedom on the hope that he’d ever be released from testing if they knew all the drugs Zola had pumped into him during the two months.

It meant he could finally go home even if it didn’t feel like it belonged to him anymore. The feeling intensified when he witnessed the effects of new medical treatments on Steve. The six foot plus Greek god that was waiting for him at the airport terminal felt like a different person--right up until he turned to sucker punch a guy trying to peek up a girl’s skirt. That had been enough to bring out the first real laugh he’d had since before his unit had been blown sky high.

So he tried to cope. Tried to remember the old Bucky Barnes before he got all these scars. Tried to pretend like he hadn’t always been desperately in love with his best friend. He would be fine. Eventually.

He got a new arm courtesy of Tony Stark’s mercurial fascination with lost causes and added an eccentric billionaire to his list of friends. It even came with a cover that made it identical to his right.

(Bucky decided it was worth the pain of sitting on the exam table for hours, fighting back a panic attack, for the way Steve had burst into tears and held onto him until they were both a sobbing mess when he saw it for the first time.)

The arm doesn’t take away all the damage left behind by war though. 

Bucky found himself still struggling to hide the violence that lurked beneath his fingertips despite his return to the homefront. Steve’s worried glances were threatening to carve new lines in his handsome features and Bucky hated the careful way Steve talked to him now, like he was afraid of triggering the memories that had him screaming himself hoarse deep into the night. He took to taking long walks through Brooklyn, just to try to breathe in the city air long enough to chase away the taste of sand and death in his mouth.

It was on one of those long walks that Bucky found a new purpose in life. 

Namely, violence for the sake of good.

* * *

The sound of flesh striking flesh was so jarringly out of place that, for a moment, Bucky thought he was having another flashback. 

He closed his eyes and breathed deep, trying to walk through the breathing exercises his therapist was always going on about. He focused on the sounds of traffic in the distance and the sharp smell of ozone from the storm lurking overhead.  _ I’m not there _ , he told himself,  _ I’m in Brooklyn again. Steve is safe. I am home. I am-- _

A sharp yelp this time and Bucky’s head jerked up like a hound to a scent.

Not a memory then. 

He was moving before the decision really registered. It was instinct to hunt down the sounds of a fight after a lifetime of looking after Steve, even if he was big enough now to protect himself. There was a scrape of metal against concrete and he jogged towards the noise, instinctively scanning the street for any other threats. At the corner, a cop was smoking a cigarette while he leaned against a building and scrolled through his Facebook feed. Bucky spared him a glance before turning down the alley and taking in the scene of the fight for himself.

A young man--a boy, really, despite the school uniform that marked him as belonging to a nearby high school--was on his hands and knees at the feet of a bulky, scarred man. The larger man smirked down at his victim, leaning down to yank him up by his collar.

Bucky growled, his left arm whirring in his agitation, and called out before he could raise his fist again. Stepping into fights that he didn’t start was practically habit at this point.

“Hey!” he snapped and narrowed his eyes when the thug looked his way, “Let the kid go, asshole.”

“Move along, punk,” the man replied, not bothering to loosen his hold on the boy who was staring at Bucky with a desperate kind of hope, “this ain’t your fight.”

“Maybe not, but I’m sure the cops might be interested in some petty theft,” Bucky bluffed. “Let the kid go and I won’t give them a call.” He held out his phone in his right hand, thumb over the dial button in a weak threat. There was another sound to his left and he turned in time to watch another two men step out of the shadows.

The ringleader let out a cruel laugh. “You picked a bad night to play hero, boy. Hydra owns these streets. Those cops out there won’t do a damn thing to stop me when I decide to cave your head in for interrupting my evening.”

His stomach gave a sickening lurch at the sound of the people responsible for the worst of his nightmares. Hydra had practically carved their names into his skin while he’d been in their prison. They’d enjoyed marking them as one of their own--it was part of the reason why he avoided Steve’s touch nowadays and only changed with the door locked. The idea that Hydra had made their way into the same city as Steve was enough to make his blood run cold.

Bucky glanced over at where the cop had been standing a few minutes before and felt his eyes widen in shock when the man took in the fight brewing on the street and turned away. His dark uniform felt like it was mocking Bucky as the rest of the men circled around him. Alright then, no help from the law. Three against one wasn’t the worst odds he’d faced, but his hands were already itching for one of his knives or the butt of a gun. The men surrounding him didn’t have the same problem--he caught sight of the flicker of bright metal in more than one hand.

He met the kid’s eyes for a brief moment before refocusing on the man holding him. “Last chance, asshole. Let him go.”

“And if I don’t--”

Bucky didn’t bother to give a warning. He threw himself on the closest man with his shoulder ducked and every once of his strength channeling into slamming him into the corner of the building. The man’s head made a sick sounding crunch when it connected that Bucky ignored in favor of grabbing up the knife in his slack hand and sinking it deep into the next man’s jugular. Blood sprayed, hot and jarringly familiar across his face. 

A soft sound at his back had him dropping low to avoid the gunshot that ripped through the night air. His leg lashed out in a kick that crumpled the shooter’s knee to the tune of his scream of agony. Bucky rolled past a clumsy attempt to kick him back and snatched up the loose gun in the process. He let the momentum bring him back to his feet with the gun extended to aim between the eyes of the stunned ringleader.

“Drop. Him.” he ordered.

The boy made a soft sound of horror when the hold on his neck was released so he could scramble away. He looked torn between running towards Bucky and the fear that came with watching the violence Bucky had just unleashed. Bucky gestured with his free hand, “Get out of here, kid. Don’t come back.”

Before the boy’s footsteps had even faded from earshot, Bucky was refocusing on the furious looking man at the end of his weapon. This close, he could make out the scars that spoke of a life of violence and other people’s pain.  __

_ A bully, _ he heard Steve’s voice whisper. _ I don’t like bullies. _

All around them, the sounds of barely muffled agony continued from the men Bucky had already dropped. The ringleader didn’t seem bothered by his men’s fates. “You don’t know what you’re getting into,” he blustered. “Hydra will never allow this to go unpunished.”

_ \--Hail Hydra, the beady eyed doctor whispered into Bucky’s ear as he twisted and writhed against the fire racing through his veins.-- _

Notrealnotrealnotrealnotrealnotreal

He breathed through the panic and forced his mind to stay firmly in the present. Bucky tilted his head in mock consideration to hide the way his body shivered at the reminder of who had kept him captive for months. “Hydra got blown to bits--it no longer exists.”

The laughter was cruel as the realization that the lie he’d been telling himself in the darkest of times. 

“Cut off one head and two more will replace it,” the man crooned, eyeing Bucky speculatively. “You should know better than to think you could get away so easily.”

_ \--Such a good soldier. You’ll serve us well as the new Fist of Hydra.-- _

“I...you don’t--”

“You have the look of one of Zola’s pets, don’t you?” he continued and grinned at the way Bucky’s hand was shaking even as he kept the gun aimed at him. “I wonder how long it’ll take before they drag you back to them, hmm? None of his soldiers ever last long outside of--”

The gunshot cut off the gleeful laughter before it could begin and Bucky watched the body fall with cold satisfaction. 

For a moment, he was staring into the dead eyes peering up at him from behind broken glasses with the sort of shocked betrayal that made Bucky want to scream. Zola’s death had been far too quick to soothe the agonies of months under his care. Bucky had stared and stared at the body, trying to cement the sight into his memory even as the soldiers filling the room with familiar uniforms urged him to move on.

Perhaps he had moved on too quickly.

The man still trembling at his feet made a gasping sort of moan at the sight and Bucky turned to watch him clutch helplessly at his shattered knee. Bucky gestured to the dead man with the gun. “Are you with Hydra too?”

“I--I--” babbling through the panic, the thug watched Bucky warily and tried to scoot further away.

In a smooth gesture that managed to hide the horror building in his gut, Bucky crouched down beside the injured man and let the numbness he remembered from his days behind a scope sink into his bones. He smiled, slow and vicious to the only survivor. “You don’t look the type to manage suicide like the rest of Hydra’s brainwashed flunkies,” he murmured. “So why don’t you do me a favor instead?”

The man stared up at him with a fragile kind of hope in his pain-dark eyes.

“Tell them the Winter Soldier is coming for them. Tell them that this time, I intend to finish what I started with Zola.”

  
  
  


Two days later, Bucky walked into Tony’s lab after finally managing to shake off Steve’s worried hovering long enough to slip out of the apartment. Turns out coming home covered in blood and barely capable of speech was enough to alarm even the staunchest of friends. The weak part of Bucky had enjoyed the way Steve had cradled him close as he curled up on the cool tile of the bathroom and shook through the panic that was realizing that Hydra was here. That they had been here all along.

It had taken nearly twenty four hours to sort through the lingering memories of exam tables and pain to decide what he would do next. If Hydra was in Brooklyn, he couldn’t risk them realizing he was there too. If they found him, they could find Steve.

Bucky would die before he let that happen.

“Buckaroo!” Tony called from beneath some sort of massive engine propped on cinder blocks. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

Bucky hesitated for barely a beat before blurting, “I need some guns.”

Tony rolled out from under the engine block to stare up at him in shock. “What?”

“I’ve decided to take up a new hobby.”

* * *

From then on, the city of New York found itself the unwilling battlefield between Hydra and their newest enemy--the Winter Soldier.

He started with the dirty cops who’d agreed to look the other way in return for helpful promotions and weighty payoffs. Bucky made a point of staking out the bodies in public places to ensure the deaths couldn’t be ignored by the media or Hydra’s leaders. It was as good a declaration of war as he could manage in such a short amount of time. Then he turned his attention to their informants, taking pride in hunting each of the little rats before they could abandon ship.

It was daunting, facing the demons of his past once again. Somehow the bogeyman of the Middle East had come home to roost in New York--maybe it had even been there before he’d left. He found himself staring up at the ceiling each night wondering how many of the men he’d killed as a soldier had been to serve Hydra’s purposes. There were so many of them hidden throughout the city and in positions of power that he felt like they barely noticed those he killed. 

He couldn’t trust the police. He couldn’t trust the government. The rot was so deep in the city that he didn’t know if he would ever truly find the source. So he did the only thing he could do--take out every member of Hydra he could find.

The media certainly didn’t ignore the mysterious deaths around the city. Their fascination with the growing coterie of vigilantes--Daredevil, Spiderman, the Falcon--meant that the arrival of a new character was met with rabid excitement. The Winter Soldier was different though. He hadn’t posed for pictures atop the restrained bodies of drug lords or child traffickers--he had far darker talents. Somehow the true identities of his victims were always missing from the newspaper headlines--shady politicians were old news after all.

It didn’t take long before he had joined the dubious ranks of the countless new villains lurking around the city according to the papers. After the first month, images of a masked killer were posted on each block with rewards for any information leading to his arrest. Mothers warned their children not to stay out after dark for fear of attracting his attention. All through the city members of a cult that was not meant to still exist clutched their weapons and eyed the shadows suspiciously, waiting to see what the night would bring.

The Winter Soldier became the monster Hydra had trained him to be--only this time, he was hunting them.

* * *

“Halt!” The winged vigilante cried as he aimed two respectable looking uzis at Bucky. “Put your hands up.”

Bucky looked at the newcomer with pursed lips and tried not to roll his eyes at the sight of the ridiculous get up. Unlike Bucky, the man leveling his guns at him was wearing a red and grey uniform complete with a matching mask that mimicked the metal wings flaring wide behind his back. He didn’t need an introduction--the papers loved the story of Harlem’s own Falcon. He had been on the vigilante scene for years, rescuing kittens from trees and attractive women from burning buildings.

And now, apparently, he’d decided to take on New York’s newest villain.

Safe behind his domino mask, Bucky tilted his head in consideration before casually reaching behind his back and firing the gun he’d tucked into the back of his jeans in the space of a heartbeat. The Falcon’s eyes flicked up a moment in surprise before he crumpled into a heap. Bucky gave a sympathetic wince at the sound of the hit, but smirked a little at the ease in which he’d finished off this wannabe hero. Stark’s tranquilizer seemed to be working without a hitch. He was grateful for the failsafe that he kept handy in case of any nosy heroes.

He strolled over to the explosive he’d been attaching to the metal support beam of the warehouse. Beside him, the Falcon groaned weakly, body still twitching despite the drugs.

“I know, I know,” Bucky murmured to the unconscious man, “not really an honorable way to fight. I figure it’s the only way to keep you from screwing up my night. No hard feelings though, I hope.”

The bomb gave a cheerful chirp when he pressed the timer and the red numbers began to countdown from five minutes. He pivoted quickly and set another bundle at the far end of the room near the bank of computers. The USB in his pocket already contained all the information he needed from them and he couldn’t risk the wrong person following the trail back to Hydra.

A buzzing sound distracted him from setting the last charge and he reached into his jacket to retrieve his phone. A new message from Steve blinked at him from his home screen.

_ Chinese and bad movies tonight? _

The burst of warmth at the simple request was probably unhealthy. His crush on Steve certainly was becoming more and more of a problem now that he understood how bad life could be without him. His fingers were brushing over the keypad almost immediately.

_ Be there in thirty. _

There was a huff of air from the only other person still alive in the room and Bucky turned to consider him. “You couldn’t have picked another night to harass me, hero?” A thought occurred to him and he counted the rest of the downed Hydra members--one was missing. “What? Did one of them come screaming up to you, panicking about the Winter Soldier? I should’ve noticed I was one henchman short.”

Bucky glanced at the timer and the unmoving man among the rest of Hydra’s goons and sighed. This was seriously beginning to ruin his evening.

“You’re such a complete disaster,” Bucky grunted as he hauled the hero up off the concrete. The other man groaned out a weak protest, but didn’t try to break free. “Seriously, how did you ever think you could beat me? You’re way too noble. It’s disgusting.”

He managed to drag the Falcon through the door and down the alley before the building erupted into flames. Bucky paused to smirk at yet another one of Stark’s designs working perfectly before trudging further away from the rush of heat. It wouldn’t be long before the police would be swarming the area and making it even more difficult to get out of here. Dragging along an unconscious hero would definitely not earn him any favors with the law.

Annoyed at the unforeseen complication, Bucky let the Falcon slump to the ground and put his hands on his hips to scan the area around him for a way to dump the dopey hero and get back to Brooklyn. The smell of a nearby garbage bin made him smirk.

TIme to take out the trash.

* * *

An hour later, Sam Wilson opened his eyes and gagged at the foul stench surrounding him. 

With a wheeze, he slowly sat up and stared at the high walls of the...garbage bin? What the hell? His wings had thankfully retracted into their shell or he probably wouldn’t have fit into the cramped space. Judging from the smell and the cold noodles covering one sleeve, he’d guess he must be out of a chinese restaurant.

His phone buzzed in his pocket and he fished it out with a dull groan when the movement made his head throb angrily. It was a marker for how screwed up his life was that he recognized the aftereffects of being drugged. He guessed he should be grateful that the Winter Soldier hadn’t just shot him with a real bullet.

Swiping open his phone, he stared at the message from Steve. 

_ Hey, I was thinking about introducing you to Bucky. He’s finally feeling better. Are you free tomorrow to come over and watch the game? _

Sam sighed and stared up at the dark sky with a frown before tapping out a reply. He’d take the evening off to meet Steve’s childhood friend and relax a bit.

  
Then he’d get back to doing what he did best--bring a villain to justice. The Winter Soldier was going down.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think in the comments! Thanks for reading!


End file.
